If you're not familiar with the original concept that Little Paper Shop was started with, it may interest you to know that Julia especially wanted to offer stamp sets that were tailored to men & boys. (There are some really amazing stamps for the fellas in your life in the LPS store.)

Since I can't leave well enough alone, I modified it to be directly printable. I like to have no dotted lines (just little marks that show you where to score. There's a score guide version available too...)

Layered embossed digis: As you know since I'm always rambling on about it, gesso lets you emboss digital images when you print--but layering digital images can be fun too, especially if your resize between printing. :O)

These robot digis were printed twice:

the first time: off the edge of the cardstock (using photoshop & changing the image orientation in print settings)

&

the second time: at a smaller percentage & over top of the first image a little. (The gesso lets the ink stay wet long enough to emboss the two images. My printer didn't smudge, but you may wanna experiment.)

Printing on Gesso: To get nice printing on gesso: try using a thin coat of gesso applied with a very good quality brush. (That will minimize brush strokes and should keep the printer ink from running.) Wet copics will have a looser look than drier ones.

If you're not worried about your printer (mine was 50 bucks Canadian so I don't baby it) ;o) then you can emboss the first one and run your paper through again to print & emboss the second one. Then there are no smudges for sure. :O)

Stippled effects with pouncing Copics:

After you print & emboss on the gesso paper, then it's SO quick to colour. It's not only way easier than traditional colouring (since blending is simple & you can lift colour off too or erase), but it also lets you get funky effects.

The hammered metal look in that pic up there is one look (click for a zoomed view, if you like) Just pounce your markers to get the stipple effect. (I used the chisel end of the Copic. Saves your brush tip & it makes nice dots of colour.) It's handy since you don't need to sully your colourless blender to get texture. :O)

3D embellishments can be so pricey and hard to find in original sayings (not that "hi" is even the slightest bit original, lol, but you can stamp anything you want to say & use any alphabet stamp style that you like. :O) Shrink plastic sayings are easy to make. I made a bunch to have as a little stash. :O) The plastic comes in black, clear, white, and colours...

Wowm, Mel! This would definitely make a great masculine gift set. Don't you just love using grid paper? I am too cheap and use actual grid paper for my cards and just back them with cardstock for stability since they are so thin to begin with. Love this project and the robots! Thanks again for sharing the box template!